Dear PMDG teamPlease describe as reminder a clean cold & dark setup with the 747-400/400F. I've some strange noise on my cockpit (like APU) after a cold & dark setupt with the cold & dark Cessna.Thanks!Best regardsMarcel

Marcel,This link should help you get going....http://smithplanet.com/fs2004/pmdg/index.htm

Is there a note there somewhere saying "Not to be used in the real world"??? :(After a very brief scan of the list, there seems to be a few factual errors, risky procedures and unnecessary switch movements.Rgds.Q>

>Is there a note there somewhere saying "Not to be used in the>real world"??? :(I saw the site a few weeks back. It should say "Not to be used even for simulation."Paul

Smithy's tutorial is good for getting a newbie to complete a flight from startup to shutdown. I agree it's not all "by the book", but it does help to get us beginners over a few of the hurdles we face when trying to see how a flight whould progress i.e. MCP controls, FMC setup.I wish PMDG would have produced such an example flight for us to follow. I have read through the 370+ page manual for the queen twice now, but it's still a helluva steep learning curve.Andy Scholes.

True, Andy..... and it is a great effort by Smithy. It wouldn't take too much effort to fix up his tutorial (Just a bit of cut/paste/delete). :)Cheers.Q>

Good morning folksThanks for your answers. I asked this because I received following answer from Mr R. Randazzo concerning the saved old cold & dark files of the PAX-version before installing the 400F:Marcel-We haven't really tested- to be honest.From what I know about the airplanes- I think they are probably "mostly" compatible- although you might wind up with some odd system setups in the fuel system/ECS controls and a few other places...It might not work at all- we really didn't try it. Robert S. RandazzoPrecision Manuals Development Group www.precisionmanuals.com

When I fly the 744 basically all the procedures I follow are based on Smithy's tutorial. Would anyone mind explaining exactly what parts of his tutorial are wrong or need some changing?Thanks a lot.

Anyone?

I just had a longer look at the tutorial and there are more problems than I initially thought... I just don't know where the author got all this incorrect information from.Sorry, I'll have to let someone else answer this.. (I don't have the time at the moment to correct all the mistakes).However, it should give you enough information to fly a basic flight. It's just the technical information that is incorrect.Rgds.Q.

how about this one? it has full colour pages and ive found it very good. not sure how accurate it is but its definitely step by stephttp://drk.free.fr/tutoriels/200601_E/B747.php

As already mentioned some switches are unnecessarily moved in that tutorial, here's my cold and dark setup I start with:You should start with the default Cessna and turn the engine and master switches off. Then do/check the following in the PMDG744:.-|Overheadpanel:|-IRS: Should be all off but are not saved in off position|-STANDBY POWER: OFF|-L,R Utiliy: ON|-APU: OFF|-BATTERY: OFF|-BUS TIE: All AUTO|-GEN CONT: ALL ON|-HYD PUMPS|--DEMAND: ALL OFF|--ENGINE: ALL ON|-EMERGENCY EXIT LIGHTS: OFF|-AUTOSTART: ON|-FUEL PUMPS: OFF|-NAI: OFF|-WINDOW HEAT: OFF|-YAW DAMPERS: ON|-TRIM AIR: ON|-PACKS: OFF|-L,R ISLN: ON|-APU BLEED: OFF|-ENGINE BLEEDS: ON|-ALL LIGHTS: OFF`-.-|Throttles:|-FUEL CONTROL SWITCHES: ALL OFF`-.-|PEDESTRAL|-NO SMOKING: ON|-SEATBELTS: OFF`-I would also appreciate if somebody corrects any mistakes in my setup. Thanks :)

for some reason, I can't get access to it... (Rgds.Q>

Much better than in the tutorial, Hendrik. There will always be minor variations between airlines of course :)Most of the time, engineers will shut down the aircraft.... For this kind of thing, they don't follow rigid procedures like the flight crew do, so there may be individual variations, also.E,g, Very few of our guys bother to put the Standby Power switch to OFF unless, perhaps, a foreign carrier asks that we do. I don't see any hazard in leaving it in AUTO if the battery switch is OFF ;)Cheers.Q>